Page 50 - SOUTHERN OREGON MAGAZINE FALL 2019

neck of the woods | theatre

REX YOUNG

At Home in the Elizabethan Theatre

lee juillerat
courtesy of oregon shakespeare
festival & lee juillerat

itting in the empty Elizabethan Theatre, Rex Young looks very much at ease, very
Smuch at home. A night earlier, he performed three parts in Macbeth—Duncan, a doc-
tor and a porter. A late summer storm had dampened the audience, but not his spirits.

He relaxes, sinking into the seat while reflecting on the play, his performance and, even
more, the time when Young, 53, was a curious 15-year-old sitting in one of those seats
mesmerized by what he saw on the stage.

"I remember seeing Richard II," he tells of viewing the seldom-produced Shakespearean
play. "I was blown away by the play, the theater, the actors, the costumers." When the
lights came on and people began filing out, he recalls getting up and moving out of the
theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's outdoor Elizabethan Theatre. It wasn't until
he heard the trumpets and saw others heading back inside that he realized there was a
second act. "I thought it was over," he admits with a light chuckle.

Young has been returning to the Elizabethan Theatre and the Festival ever since. Actually,
his connections to the Festival began before his birth or, as he puts it, "It goes deeper
than that." His parents, Richard Young and Lynne Eilers (now Lynne Young Rosa), met
at then-Southern Oregon College and married. When he was older, Young learned he
was conceived in what is now Festival housing.

Ashland was where he first lived and, for the past 15 years, it has once more been home.
He and his family moved to Seattle for his father’s work in newspapers. They returned
to Ashland in 1980. Young was 15, and attended Ashland High School. He was hooked
on theater, and while in high school, he served as a volunteer ticket taker at OSF and
later as a "tart boy" outfitted in period clothing selling pecan tarts. For five years, he
was an usher, something he describes as "my favorite job, other than being an actor."
When he was 17, Young learned that an actor in Hamlet was leaving the company. "I
thought this is my chance. I was about the same height." Young got the part as Soldier
No. 7. "I did have one line," he remembers, explaining with his ever-present grin that
while standing off stage he called out, "Hamlet!"

Over time, Young increased his stage presence. He's been part of the Festival's acting
company for 20 years, but not consecutively. As a theater major at Southern Oregon

48 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | fall 2019